


Sunny Days

by ixieko



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-25
Updated: 2015-05-25
Packaged: 2018-04-01 06:18:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4009039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ixieko/pseuds/ixieko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Lucrecia and Ifalna are at the University, Ifalna sees Hojo for the first time, and we get a chance to peek into modern Cetra's everyday life and its perils.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sunny Days

_Treasure the sunny days, for they are short;_  
_Remember them in your time of need;_  
_Let them be your lighthouse on the stormy seas._  
_-_

The university cafeteria was packed tight; it wasn't unexpected, considering the ever-increasing numbers of students, while the building stayed the same old, built in the times when it was Midgar University, not Shin-Ra, and far lesser amount of people were taught there. But, packed or not packed, it was a good place for lunch, if only because the food there was free.  
Such, more or less, was the opinion of Lucrecia Crescent, who, standing in the line to get lunch, expressed it to her friend and roommate Ifalna Nyx, and she was in full agreement with that.

"If only someone," Lucrecia pointedly looked at Ifalna, "Wasn't so busy flirting with Professor Faremis, we would be here ten minutes ago, and maybe even could find a place to sit."  
Ifalna rolled her eyes. "I wasn't _flirting_ ," She said. "He was telling about a very interesting interpretation of one of the Cetra tablets, found by Maruis' expedition back in 20s."  
"Ah-ha," Lucrecia said, unconvinced, "And now all the tables are occupied."  
"We can always sit outside."  
Lucrecia turned to the narrow windows. Outside, the trees were bending under the strong blows of wind, and the rain poured out of the dark storm clouds.  
"If we sit close enough to the wall, the rain won't reach us," Ifalna said, making a valiant effort to stay serious, but when Lucrecia turned a murderous glare to her, she gave up and laughed out loud. "Okay," She said, raising a hand, "I was joking about the outside. But there's still place at the windowsills."  
The walls of the old building, made of heavy stone blocks, were thick, and white marble windowsills were low and wide enough to comfortably sit on them; some of the students were doing just that. Out of six windows, four were still unoccupied.

By the time they finally got to the counter and exchanged their coupons for food, though, there were no unoccupied places even at sills, and so they went, trays in their hands, around the cafeteria, until they found a table where a couple of students were beginning to stand up. The girls quickly ran there and took the place, earning swear words from unlucky ones who were too slow.

They ate quickly and chatted about nothing in particular, until Ifalna noticed that Lucrecia stopped listening and was instead staring at something, her spoon forgotten in mid-air. Ifalna looked the same direction, trying to understand what attracted Lucy's attention.  
At the table in the very corner of the lunch hall, a young man was sitting, facing slightly to the side from them. Lucrecia seemed to stare right at him, her face gaining a dreamy expression. The man was thin and pale, his hair was dark and seemed quite long, tied into a ponytail. On his nose he had round glasses in thin metal rim. Judging by his cheekbones and the shape of his eyes, he seemed to be at least partly Wutaian. He wore a simple dark blue shirt and black pants. A perfectly average appearance, nothing to be so starry-eyed about.  
"Who is that?" Ifalna whispered to Lucrecia, who, startled, jumped up and dropped the spoon that fell, clattering, to the tile floor. The man flinched a little and looked at them with displeasure before returning to his meal. Lucrecia's cheeks turned red.  
"Don't startle me like that," She whispered back.  
"Who is he?" Ifalna repeated. Lucrecia turned even brighter red.  
"Oh, you know," She said, hiding beneath the table to search for her spoon, "Just a new face in the BioMed faculty. They say he is... pretty impressive."  
"A new face?" Ifalna looked at the man critically. "He seems older than we are."  
Lucrecia straightened up and, leaning closer, whispered right into Ifalna's ear, "I heard he brought some kind of a very advanced project with him. He was late to the entrance exams, but was accepted anyway. Can you imagine that?"  
Ifalna tried. But Simmons, who behind her back was called _The Harpy Queen_ , accepting someone into her beloved BioMed faculty without exams? That was simply impossible.

After the lunch they parted. Lucrecia went to the Mako&Materia labs - she had an advanced Materia class - and Ifalna to the library.

When she returned to their room, Lucrecia already changed into her pajamas and was sitting propped on pillows, reading some kind of papers, printed on thin paper and cut into pages. Ifalna squinted at the title.  
" _The effects of prolonged Mako exposure on nervous tissue in mammals_ ," She read aloud. "I thought you weren't taking advanced biology, Lucy."  
"This is close enough to my field of interests," Lucrecia said, her cheeks turning slightly pink.  
Ifalna looked at her with suspicion. Lucrecia turned red. "Don't look at me like that, Iffie," She said defensively. "Yes, I'm reading his research notes, what of it?"  
"His? Whose?" Ifalna was momentarily at loss, but then remembered the man from the cafeteria. "Ah, that guy from BioMed." She glanced at the page again. "Hojo."  
" _Simon_." Lucrecia corrected. "Simon Hojo. He's twenty-one, by the way, only four years older than I am, and he is already on a real project, with The Harpy herself as a leader."  
"And you are reading his notes."  
"Yes. It's really interesting, and besides, I want to know him better."  
"You... reading this to know him better? Are you serious, Lucy?"  
"Why?" Lucrecia put the file aside, frowned at her friend. "I want to know how his mind works. This _is_ getting to know him better."  
"What for? You want to work together with him that badly?"  
"Work, yes," Lucrecia said, and her face gained the same dreamy expression as in the cafeteria before. She smiled. "And if I'll ever marry someone, it'll be him... Or, at least, someone like him."  
" _Marry_ ," Ifalna said with distaste. "Family, kids, - it's all just a waste of time and nerves, in my opinion. I don't want _any_ of that. We're here to do science, and that's what I'll do."  
"But family won't prevent you from making a career," Lucrecia said. "My parents are both scientists, you know, and they never stopped their work. Even when mom was pregnant with me, or when I was a baby."  
Ifalna turned away and walked to the table. Above it, on the shelves, stood her books and small souvenirs. She took one of them, a little heron carved out of silvery white wood.  
"Well, not _everyone_ is like your parents," She said.

...

Ifalna was a late kid, late even by Cetra standards; when she was born, her father's hair was already grey, and her mother's face covered in wrinkles, though not so many and not so deep as grandmother's. She grew up among human children, and was taught to blend in, to be like everyone.  
Her father protested any attempts on the grandmother's part to teach her the ways of old.  
"Our race is extinct," He used to say. "We should live as humans do."

Ifalna never knew if she had siblings, neither she knew how her grandfather died. These topics were a taboo in their house; all she knew was that her family moved into the small town several years before she was born, and the grandfather died before that.

The town was little, and there wasn't much to do there. Children she knew grew up and left, went to the bigger cities in search for better life. Coming to visit their parents, they told stories about many places and many wonders, but two inseparable names sounded more and more often in the last years.  
Midgar and Shin-Ra.

"You know what they want to do now?" Ifalna heard from her childhood friend once. "They want to pay for education for people who get top scores in their exams! Just imagine, to study at the best University in the world, in the biggest city, and all for free! There's a lot of people who wants it, and the contest will be very hard, of course, but what if I win? Don't know about you, but I'm going!"  
That was the chance Ifalna was waiting for, but her father disagreed without even listening her out.  
"Midgar is too big, and Shin-Ra is far too dangerous," He said. "I forbid you to go there."  
"But why?" She cried in frustration, "Everyone leaves, and I don't want to stay here! Don't you understand?"  
"It is too dangerous, child," He said. "I only want to protect you. When you will have your own children, then you will understand."  
"If having children means being a jailer to them, then I won't have any," She hissed and stormed away, to her room.

Later that night, he came to her, and, sitting at the other side of the closed door, swallowing tears, she listened to him telling the story of their family.  
He told that, being a nomadic tribe, one of the few remaining tribes of Cetra, they were travelling through the Western Continent. For many years they travelled, sometimes visiting human settlements, trading goods with them, healing, using their diminished but still existing powers to restore the land's fertility.  
He told about her brothers and sisters, and small nieces and nephews. Their family was big, and strong, and happy, - until the hunt for Cetra began.  
How did humans get an idea that Cetra had some kind of knowledge about a place containing countless treasures, her father did not know. He only knew that one by one the remaining tribes either were hunted and destroyed, or went into hiding, blending with humans, disappearing. Were he the leader, he would lead his tribe into hiding too, he said, but he weren't, and they continued their travels, until one day in one of the villages they were met not with welcome words, but with weapons.  
"I was injured," He said. "Your mother and my mother found me unconscious among the corpses when the fight was over. I survived, but we lost all our children."  
"You are my only child alive," He whispered, and in the quiet of night Ifalna heard tears in his voice. "Please, stay out of harm's way."

  
"If you truly want to go to Midgar, then go," He said some time later. "But never trust humans. Never let your guard down. Tell no one of your true origin. Don't let them get you."  
"I won't, father, I promise," She said then.

...

Ifalna caressed the white statuette for one last time and put it back on the shelf. She almost slipped today, almost forgot about caution. Professor Faremis was so friendly, so genuinely interested in Cetra, so _enthusiastic_ , that to his question about how did she knew so much about the Ancients she almost blurted, "Because I am one."

  
The statuette was carved by her grandfather, carved out of the wood that grew only in one place in the world, and it was an evidence that could be used against her. She should probably throw it out, but couldn't bring herself to do it. She was living among humans as one of them in the very heart of human civilization, she wasn't following the ways of Cetra and didn't have a slightest intention to, but this small thing was a connection not only to her race, but to her family, and she was reluctant to sever this last tie.  
Sighing, she looked out of the window. The daylight faded; the sky was clear, filled with countless stars. People were walking outside, chatting, laughing, kissing.  
She could never let her guard down. She could have sex, but not real intimacy, friendship, but not real trust. If she let anyone too close, it would only get her killed.

"I don't want to marry," She said firmly. "Or have kids. It's just a waste of time."  
"Mmm-hmm," Lucrecia said, immersed in reading again.


End file.
